TiMER

Having scrolled past TiMER repeatedly on Netflix, I finally had the opportunity to watch it with my wife one evening. The premise seemed pretty interesting: in the not-too-distant future, a new technology allows a digital timer to be implanted on your wrist that counts down the years, days, minues, hours, and seconds until you'll meet your soul mate. When your eyes lock, the TiMER goes off and you live happily ever after.

Just a quick warning, I'm going to probably give away some major plot points, and spoil the ending, because quite frankly the movie spoiled the ending for me and I'd be remiss not sharing. You've been warned.

The story follows Oona and Steph, who are stepsisters. Steph's TiMER is counting down, but Oona's is blank, meaning that her soul mate isn't also wearing a TiMER. Fearing that she'll miss out (because she's rapidly approaching 30 and, apparently, spinsterhood, because no one over 30 is worth marrying), she takes every man she feels remotely attracted to in to have a TiMER installed, but none of them are Mr. Right. One day, Oona meets Mikey, a local grocery clerk with 4 months left on his TiMER. She falls for him but knows that they can't be together. However, she is fairly easily convinced that because there is no chance that they'll be together, they can totally just have sex and be fuck buddies. There's no chance for a big letdown, because the TiMER has already let them down. Hooray for consequence free boot-knockin. All's going well until Mikey reveals that his TiMER is a fake. Suddenly Oona wonders if maybe Mikey is the one, but he refuses to get a TiMER because he feels that it takes the excitement out of life knowing what's going to happen, a point he tries to convince Oona of. So she gives him the coldest of shoulders for being a lying jerk.

Running along side this story, Oona and Steph's younger brother has just gotten his TiMER, which has become a rite of passage. So much for a car and a learner's permit. Their brother's TiMER pops up with a relatively short time window, making both of them jealous. Over the course of the rest of the film, their mother plans for a meeting between their brother and a lovely young girl around the time his TiMER is set to go off. But, shocker, they aren't true loves. Spoiler here: Turns out his true love is their housekeeper's daughter. What with being white enough to have a housekeeper, this puts quite the crimp in everyone's plans. But hey, it's the modern age, so his mom decides to suck up her obvious disdain for the woman who cleans her toilets' daughter's class level and support her son's budding relationship that he ultimately had no choice about in the first place. Cue the hilarious learning-to-speak-Spanish-to-show-your-acceptance-of-the-inevitable zaniness. The should make a TV show about that...maybe they could get Rob Schneider to star, that guy'll be in just about anything...

In the meantime, Steph meets Dan, a widower without a TiMER. They end up clicking and fall for each other, even though Steph's TiMER still has 10+ years left on it. And obviously, since Dan lacks a TiMER, he's not Steph's soul mate. But, as their relationship grows, Steph begins to question whether it's worth the wait.

So, with both Steph and Oona deciding that they've found someone they love regardless of what the TiMERs do and do not say, they resolve to have them removed. Steph goes first, and while Oona is preparing to have her's removed, the technicians explain that the TiMER, once removed, can never be re-attached and causes the soul mate's TiMER to blank out, meaning they won't know when they meet. Unsurprisingly, Steph is rather annoyed that they waited until after her's had been removed. Just as Oona's is about to come off, it suddenly comes to life with less than 24 hours, which happens to coincide with Oona's 30th birthday. Ultimately, Oona lays in bed all day and let's the TiMER's end time pass. After avoiding all human contact, she heads off to her death-is-right-around-the-corner 30th birthday party, where Steph plans to introduce her to Dan.

OK, so big spoiler time. If you want to skip this and go to the recommendation, just scroll down to the red Post-spoileration. But feel free to note the koala-punching.


Typing it out, it seems like the ending should have been much more obvious. I missed it, and quite frankly it made me want to punch a koala:

Not because I didn't see what was coming, but because what was coming was the worst-case scenario ending in a movie that up to that point had been somewhat hopeful in showing that even when we know we're not destined to be with someone, we can form a relationship that still results in happiness.

In case it hasn't become grossly apparent by this point, Dan, who had just recently gotten a TiMER, ends up being Oona's soul mate. Their eyes lock at the party and their TiMERs go off. So, even though they've never met, and Oona subsequently has her TiMER removed, she's already been told that Dan is the man for her, so she goes to meet him. The end.

So let's recap:

• Oona has no time, so she finds someone she falls in love with, which turns out to be a sham. But because he doesn't have a TiMER, maybe he's the one. Should she take a chance?
• Steph, who has a time, finds someone she falls in love with without having to wait another third of her life. Should she take a chance?
• Everybody comes to the same conclusion: fuck this TiMER shit, let's take a chance...except Oona wimps out when her TiMER starts up. Steph is now stranded with no TiMER and thus no warning when she meets her soul mate. But she's got Dan, who's still pretty awesome.
• Even though she has a time now, Oona ignores it, making keeping the TiMER pointless. So fuck it...but wait...ehh fuck it.
• Oona meets Dan, her soul mate. She borks her stepsister, who's supported the shit out of her during her whiny "why don't I have a true love" phase, square in the pooper by stealing the man she loves, but it's cool because she can totally just wait for her TiMER to go---oh wait, no she can't. She drops the guy she was in love with and spent the whole film building a relationship with, but he was young, so obviously she would have had to kick him to the curb when he passed his prime in a year or two anyway, so no great loss there. 

What. The. Fuck. No seriously. You get strung along for this whole movie, led to believe that even though science can do the hard work, life's better if you just wing it and fall in love on your own, only to have your heroine cave, screw over everybody you were now rooting for to be happy in spite of some setbacks, and then just kind of leave it hanging with "at least everything will work out for them because they're soul mates, right?" No, fuck that. This movie should not have ended this way. I literally sat and stared at the TV for several minutes during and after the credits had finished wondering who the fuck had just kicked me in the balls and hadn't had the decency to give me a heads up first. 

Post-spoileration (it's OK, you can open your eyes now):

So I'm not sure if this was the plan all along, but as you can tell, the ending is still a bit of a sticking point for me. So my recommendation here is watch the movie, because it's a pretty good sci-fi tinged romantic comedy. There are some funny bits, the movie moves along quite well, and it's well acted. You definitely care what happens to the characters. But stop watching right about the last 20 minutes. Then turn it off and imagine any ending you want. Pick one: aliens descend with the intention of eating everyone, which is only discovered after deciphering their innocuously titled cookbook; everybody rides off into the sunset to fight injustice another day; the troupe of lovable animals gets home safely; hell, the dish runs away with the fucking spoon. Any ending you can imagine has to be better than the actual ending of this movie. Goddammit, where's that koala...

BTW, just to explain, this is a composite rating: The majority of the movie gets 4 Ron Perlmans, but the ending get -1 Ron Perlman. So overall, 3 Ron Perlmans.

Chris

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Barenaked Ladies
	Song:	Enid
	Album:	Gordon